By Ruth Webber Evans
How much I miss this town,
the Thrift shop, the book stores, the restaurants,
all the people whose art work fills the new museum.
Works I look at in that affectionate, possessive way
one looks at children at a family reunion,
The Giant Pears, The Fox, beauty, humor,
the call to reality of Twenty Soldiers Dead,
lies fading the ink of their portraits.
There is a sense in this town of belonging to an entity,
stitched together as is the design overlaying quilts hanging on the new museum walls,
everyone the friend of a friend,
the wife of someone I know,
or someone to meet,
to be pleased they live here.
Where I live now is where I belong
but I tell my friend
how much I miss this town,
how much I miss my friends,
how much I miss her,
how I didn’t want to go,
and she tells me
when she heard we were leaving
she went home
and threw dishes
